2nd Week Info...

Hallo Familie!

I love Antwerpen! It's such an amazing place! There are so many cool people too! It's also a massive city! Right now my companion and I just walk and take public transportation everywhere. I'm planning on getting a bike in the next week or so. The Zone Leaders (who also work here in Antwerpen) have a car and sometimes give us rides. Unfortunately, most of our appointments fell through. We do have one tomorrow though which is looking pretty good right now! We have almost given out a Boek van Mormon a day! However, we still don't have any onderzoekers (investigators). But we're working hard and we will find them!! Elder Losee and I are not in the same zone. But he's not to far. I believe he is serving somewhere in southern Nederland. Unfortunately my companion has not found his bag. He's been positive about though, which is great!

The weather here isn't too bad. My first few days here it was actually way warm, and we wore short sleeve shirts. But, the seasons change very quickly here, and it has pretty much been cloudy and rainy for the past week and will continue to be so for the next several months, haha. The temperature has been around 16 degrees Celcius (I'm not sure what that is in Farenheit).

The Antwerpen wijk (ward) is fantastic! There are about 130ish active members who are all amazing! We have a lot of work to do though, because there are like 300 inactive members here in Antwerpen. I love the food here! I have yet to eat anything disgusting. Everything I've thus far eaten has been delicious! There are a few strange things they do though. For example, the milk comes in like 1 liter bottles that have a very long shelf life when NOT refrigerated. When refrigerated, the milk spoils faster. Because of whatever it is that they put in it, it tastes a bit different. Okay, actually, it tastes a lot different, not like American milk at all. Most elders don't like. In fact, I'm the only person I know of who doesn't mind it! I drink glasses of it just like normal milk! Most elders hate it and can only stand it when it is used in something else.

For finding, we pretty much do everything! Since we have no onderzoekers we do a variety of contacting. Op straat (on the street), langs de deuren (along doors), and member referrals. My Nederlands (Dutch) is slowly improving! I can do the initial contact for people, but then my companion has to help me out. Members are easier to understand, so I can talk with them a little more. There are a lot of people here speak English! Actually, yesterday, our entire priesthood meeting was in English!

This past weeks miracle:

My companion and I were heading home from a dinner appointment with a member. It was pretty late, but we set a quick goal to try to find someone and place a Boek van Mormon. We got of the tram and walked over to the bus stop. We had just missed the previous bus, and since it was late, the next one wouldn't arrive for another 15ish minutes. We decided to just walk home and talk to people along the way. As we were walking down the street, it was pretty dark, houses were locked up, and there was no one on the street. After a few blocks we saw an African couple walking. We contacted them, and the next thing we knew they each wanted a Boek van Mormon and we got their contact information and set up a return appointment!! Hopefully it'll work out! They were way nice and accepting!

That's all for today!

Tot ziens! :)

Elder Fowkes

One Week In The Field...

Well the past week has been pretty insane! The plane flight went really well, but it was extremely long! When we arrived in Amsterdam, we immediately picked up our luggage and met our Mission President and his wife. Even though I was only in the airport for a few minutes, it didn't take me long to decide that nearly every American airport was lame. It was such a cool airport! When we walked outside I immediately noticed that about a good 80 percent of the people were smoking. We put all of our luggage in a big van and then we all took the train to Leiden where the mission office is. We went to a nice hotel across the street from the office. We had some orientation stuff and then we ate lunch (by the way the food here is amazing!). Following lunch we split into groups to practice contacting. It was incredibly terrifying at first. But the more I did it.... okay, actually it was still kind of scary, but it did get a bit easier. A little later I had the opportunity to go contacting again! Since it was my second time, I helped the others who were just learning. I went with Elder Losee and Elder Lindstrom. We (and by that I mean me...haha) talked to quite a few people. There was one guy that I had a particularly long conversation with. I was so excited that I could actually talk to people and understand what they were saying! After that, I became really excited to contact more people! We then went back to the hotel and got a three hour nap in. We had a really fancy dinner followed by an extravagant dessert. It was one of those four or five start restaurants that gives you a big plate with the entire meal in a tiny pile in the middle with some fancy garnishes. It was really good though! After dinner we all bore our testimonies and then opened our letters that told us our first area. I'm serving in Antwerp, Belgium!!!!!!!!! My trainer is Elder Gomez! He speaks English, Dutch, Spanish, and Portugese! It comes in handy! He is also the District Leader. I love him! We are actually opening our area! Which means we are starting from scratch! On Wednesday, we had some more orientation and took care of legality stuff. Which took forever! And I ended up missing lunch because of it. We then took a train to Antwerp. Somewhere along the way Elder Gomez lost his duffel bag which had all of his books, notes, and journals. The Zone Leaders gave us a ride to our apartment which is actually pretty nice. We have some great views! We live in Wilrijk, which is just south of Antwerp. By the time we got to the apartment it was like 20:00 (8:00pm) and we were starving. Unfortunately, since were the first missionaries in the apartment, there was absolutely no food! And neither of us knew the city, so we had no idea where a store was at. We ended up skipping dinner and just unpacked, planned, and went to bed. The next morning, we still had no food so we skipped breakfast. By the time we ate lunch that day, I had gone 28 hours without an actual meal! I was starving! Haha. The people here in Antwerp are amazing. It's so hard to understand them though, because here everyone speaks very strong Flemish. I'm so used to Dutch, that it's very difficult to communicate with people. But I know I'll get it! We don't have any investigators yet, but we made our first return appointment last Friday with Pieter, I guy I contacted on the street! We also made another return appointment with Jamila, an Islamic woman! This week we have a ton of dinner appointments with members! I'm so excited! The work is amazing and I love all of you! As soon as I figure out where a post office is, I'll send an SD card with pictures!

Tot ziens!

Love, Elder Fowkes! :)

P.S. If you have faith, miracles happen. In fact I just saw one like 20 minutes ago. My companion and I were walking to McDonalds to get some lunch. It was like 2:00 and we just finished playing a game of soccer, so we were starving! The church is about a block away and as we were walking past it on the way to McDonalds we somehow decided to finish emailing first and postpone lunch for an hour (honestly, I thought it was crazy because I was starving, but I agreed nonetheless). When we walked into the church, we found an inactive member inside. She has been going through some rough times and decided to go to the church in the hopes of feeling some comfort and peace. She then asked for a priesthood blessing! It was so perfect! And now we have an appointment with her this Friday! God truly does look out for and bless His children. We all happened to be at the Church at just the right time! Normally we never would have been there at that time! She really needed that blessing and since we are new missionaries and are opening the area, we need appointments! It was perfect! :) Well, that's all, but now I really am going to eat! haha Tot ziens! :)

Elder Fowkes Has Arrived in the Netherlands

Looking pretty good after a very long day of travel.

Group of 28 Elders, Elder Fowkes on right by Mission Presidents wife.

Elder Losee first row left side

First meal in the Netherlands

 Listening intently to their training.

(Elder Losee, Elder Fowkes front row left side)

Very excited to be in the Belgium/Netherlands Mission!

Elder Fowkes opening and reading where his first

place of service will be and who his trainer will be.

(Antwerp Belgium)

Elder Fowkes with trainer Elder Gomez